


Ever Falling

by osseous_matter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Crowley has Trauma from the Fall (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No 1. Let's hang out sometimes, Not Beta Read, The Fall (Good Omens), Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26761717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osseous_matter/pseuds/osseous_matter
Summary: Crowley has a nightmare about the fall
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 46
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Ever Falling

Aziraphale sighed as he shuffled closer to his partner. A smile spread across his face as he looked down at Crowley’s sleeping form. He always looked so peaceful, so very angelic. He looked divine. He was divine. More divine than Heaven had ever been. The angel reached out to slip a hand into his favorite being’s red, loose hair. It was impossible not to note the small shiver the contact elicited. Aziraphale chuckled slightly to himself, trying to imagine what Crowley would have looked like surrounded by feathery white wings and draped in flowing robes of the same color. He wondered vaguely what the demon’s eye looked like, in Heaven. If they were the same golden hue, if they were just as wild. Or if Hell brought wilderness into the man’s gaze. Surely he hadn’t kept his God-given name, right? None of the other demons had. But the person sleeping next to him had never been hellish or demonic in any way.  
Another sigh drew itself from the angel as he settled into their shared bed. He gently placed a small kiss on Crowley’s forehead before taking his hand from his hair to wrap it around his resting frame. 

****

His skin crawled with sweat as the oppressive heat stole the air from his lungs and replaced it with smoke and the scent of sulfur. He’d already been burning for so long, it was hard to remember a time fire wasn’t eating at him. Eating at his fingertips, his scalp, and his wings as he continued in a never ending plummet into pain. No sound came from his throat, he’d already screamed his vocal cords useless. There was an ever present itch in the back of his throat, only to be acquired from a thirst. A thirst for freedom, for answers, or for the very least and end to this. His eyes no longer watered. If they could, he doubted tears would be running down his face. The burning, the fire, the heat, the intensity would just evaporate the salted water.   
Falling.  
Burning.  
Dying.  
But he couldn’t die, could he? He was being sent to Hell. He was tossed from the only home he’d known to serve as an agent of evil. To become some sort of monster. A demon. The thought forced bile into his mouth. It was hard to decide what was worse, the fall, the landing and what it entailed, or the fact that he couldn’t do a single bloody thing to stop any of it.   
A force seemed to push him down further. Push him further into the embers that awaited him, eager to eat up any leftover pieces of his scorched soul. It made him wince. It made him want to fight, to do something. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, even if he had any fight left in him. He was nothing now.   
Broken.  
Falling.  
Burning.  
Dead.   
He could faintly hear voices over his pressing thoughts. The thoughts of his family, or at least the ones he used to call family. His friends, the people he loved. None of them cried for him. The heavens wept when Lucifer fell. When their precious light-bringer was engulfed in the same flames that currently devoured what it meant his identity. No tears were shed for the rest of their fallen. The rest hadn’t been worth tears. They were left to fall, to die, to be forgotten. No longer family, no longer good. Cast out of their home.  
But heaven was never his home. It was cold. Distant. The polar opposite of the searing warmth that made his skin bubble. He wondered vaguely, between waves of pain and fire, what he’d look like when all of this was over. If it’d ever be over. What kind of creature would emerge from those pits of sulfur and misery?   
The fall.  
As assumed, as promised, he was different when he crawled from boiling lakes. He emerged as a shell of the angel that helped hang the stars. A forgotten name, a forgotten family, and a forgotten kindness replaced by fear. Fear and a prickling under his skin. A reminder of the fire he belonged to now.   
He never stopped falling. Even as marred, black wings grew in place of the light-giving white ones on his back he couldn’t seem to catch himself. To slow that plummet.  
Ever falling.  
Ever broken  
Ever burning.  
Ever dying.  
Ever dead.  
Ever meant to be something he simply was not, and ever unable to do anything about it. A demon. A fallen angel. Nothing. Fallen and gone. One of the many lost children, but the only one looking to find himself. Ever an outcast, even in hell. An untrustworthy serpent who’s only master was his own wiles. The snake of Eden.  
Now, and forever Crowley.  
Now and forever falling.  
Now and forever burning.

****

“Cowley?” The demon sat up quickly, trying to get air that wouldn’t stay in his lungs. “Crowley?” he turned to the person trying to get his attention. Aziraphale. His angel. Oxygen finally seemed to seep into his aching chest, despite him not needing it in the first place. His angel gave him a small smile, “There you are.”  
“I-” Crowley huffed and sat back in the pillows, “It was a dream, wasn’t it?” he asked shakily.  
“Yes, dearest,” Aziraphale gently placed his hand on his partner’s thigh, “And it seemed like a rather awful one at that  
“Yeah,” he sighed, leaning to the side to fall on the angel’s shoulder, “it really was.”  
“Would you like to talk about it?” instead of answering, Crowley simply snuggled closer to his partner. Aziraphale gave him a sad smile and pulled him closer. He turned his head slightly to place a small kiss in the man’s ginger hair, “I love you, Crowley.”  
“Love you too, ‘ngel,” he replied softly.  
They sat there for a while, the angel holding his demon tight in the hopes that that might stop whatever dark thoughts polluted his mind during the night. He guided them gently back into a comfortable position for sleep. Crowley’s body seemed to relax, his breathing evening out.   
Aziraphale thought he had gone back to sleep until he heard his small voice, “It was about the fall,” both of their breathing hitched at the word. At the thought, even, “I… It hurts still. Burns. And the feeling of it all never really leaves,” his voice got quieter the longer he talked until it was hardly audible, even with Aziraphale so close, “It’s hard to forget, hard to not think about.”  
“Oh,” the other man sighed. Oh indeed. He had never stopped to really ever think about what falling might be like. He’d always imagined what Hell was like, and the place never really left his mind after his visit. But it never crossed his mind what it took to properly get there.   
Perhaps he was always too scared to let himself think about it.  
He held Crowley tighter, “I’m so sorry, my dear. You never deserved such a thing.”  
“Ngk, ‘s fine, it’s usually better with you around anyway,” the demon grinned slightly to himself when he felt Aziraphale smile wide.  
“I’ll catch you next time,” he whispered into the scarlet locks of his lover, “I’ll keep you grounded.”


End file.
